As magenta couplers used for silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material (hereinafter, referred to also as "color light-sensitive material") for the purpose of color reproduction by means of a subtractive color system, a 5-pyrazolone coupler, a cyanoacetophenone coupler, an indazolone coupler, a pyrazolobenzimidazole coupler, a pyrazolotriazole coupler are known.
Among them, the 5-pyrazolone coupler has a defect that the color tone in red color is incomplete while the dye images formed by the couplers are excellent in light fastness (light stability).
As couplers improving the above-mentioned color tone, pyrazolo triazole type couplers described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,725,067, Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereinafter, referred to as Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication) Nos. 99437/1984, 162548/1984 and 171956/1984, Research Disclosure (RD) Nos. 24230, and 24531 are cited. However, the light stability of dye images formed by the above-mentioned couplers were fairly inferior. Especially, when it was used in light-sensitive materials for prints which are for direct appreciation, it shows its deteriorated essential conditions as a photographic light-sensitive material to stock and record images. Therefore, it was difficult to be put to practical use.
On the other hand, since it has been known that oxygen is one of the causes of the deterioration of light fastness of coloring dye images, techniques to improve light fastness by intercepting dye images from oxygen have also been proposed
For example, in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication Nos. 11330/1974 and 57223/1975, techniques to enclose coloring dye images with an oxygen-intercepting layer composed of substances having low transmissivity for oxygen, for example, to laminate with polyester, are described. However, the above-mentioned methods were not completely satisfactory, though they showed effects to some extent. In the case of some couplers, they had a defect to deteriorate light fastness to the contrary. In addition, the number of operation processes are many and complicated. Therefore, the above-mentioned technologies are costly and therefor are not practical.
In addition, in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 158324/1986, a technique to use a support having low oxygen transmissivity is described. However, light fastness of image is still unsatisfactory.